Fyre Fraud (2019) Reviews

• Frustrating yet Very Entertaining

  genious-354132019-01-22

  One thing I found endlessly frustrating is that there is a sit-down interview with the Zuckerberg wannabe/Con Artist who gets to trot out his highly fabricated version of what happened but he is repeatedly asked direct questions which he never appears to answer - but it's hard to know because it's a quick cut edit and on to something else. If he doesn't answer 'You lost a box of keys to $2 Million worth of houses? Why didn't you tell that to the guests?' - I want to see him sit there and squirm for as long as he did in the interview. But overall, it's a fascinating spectacle to watch, as was the other Fyre documentary. I don't despise the type of people that are featured in this film: cell-phone zombies that begin every sentence with 'Literally..' and describe everything as 'Amazing'... but I do enjoy watching them actively make themselves a victim of their own narcissism.

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• Best to watch this after the Netflix doc, but they're both good

  cherold2019-02-03

  Two documentaries about the Fyre Festival debacle came out days apart, Netflix's Fyre and Hulu's Fyre Fraud, and each shines in different ways. The Netflix documentary approach is a methodical chronology. It describes what happened as it happened and how people saw it at the time. It really puts you into the day-by-day experience. Fyre Fraud takes a different approach. It actually sketches out the basics of the entire thing in the first 15 minutes, then builds upon the various components to create a whole. The titles actually hit at the different approaches. Fyre describes the Fyre Festival as a slow-mo disaster, only at the end fully revealing the shadiness of Fyre's charismatic creator, Billy McFarland. Fyre Fraud, on the other hand, immediately establishes Billy as a sleazy con man, and portrays Fyre as a series of shady transactions. Netflix portrays the festival as a disaster, Fyre Fraud as a crime. Fyre Fraud spends a lot of time framing the Fyre Fraud hysteria within the current culture. It's the sort of pundit "hot take" that is easy to poke holes in, but it's sometimes persuasive. Fraud also has an interview with Billy, although the guy is to slippery to offer much satisfaction. If you only wanted to watch one Fyre documentary, go for the Netflix one. But after you've seen it if you want more details and a different angle, Fyre Fraud is well worth your time.

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• Your Fyred

  juliankennedy232019-01-25

  Fyre: 8 out of 10 and Fyre Fraud: 8 out of 10: Two documentaries covering the now infamous Fyre Festival in the Bahamas. Both documentaries consist of plenty of talking heads, promotional footage, behind the scenes footage, and footage from the festival site itself. On to the questions So which documentary is better? I gave both documentaries the same score. Both are excellent in their own way and both take a somewhat different look at the events. If I had to choose I would pick the Hulu doc Fyre Fraud. Why would you pick that documentary? Aren't those are the people that gave money to fraudster Billy McFarland for an interview?: Yes, they are and honestly, they wasted their money. These interview bits are the weakest part of the documentary. What Fyre Fraud does well is it really breaks down Billy's fraud in a way Netflix doesn't. There is a very solid report on his previous business of a "fake" credit card and his ticket broker Ponzi schemes. (Which is, in reality, is why he is in jail along with lying to investors.). It is also more in-depth with the investors to whom he constantly lied to raise more funds for both the Fyre Festival and other ventures. In addition, the Fyre fraud seems on more solid ground in regards to its expose of influencers and PR firms. It has been noted by others that Billy's PR firm Jerry Media is one of the producers on the Netflix doc. (Though in all fairness it does not escape completely unscathed there either.) Does the Netflix Doc Fyre do anything better? Yes. The Netflix doc has much better footage particularly of the festival itself. It also focuses more on the outcome for local Bahamian workers that were not paid. Netflix's Fyre also has better behind the scene footage and appears to have more access in regards to both footage and interviews. It also wins on the most outrageous story about the festival. The whole releasing the water from customs sexual favor thing. Is there really enough material here for one documentary let alone two? Yes. Heck, there is enough for an additional documentary. While both documentaries cover some familiar ground there is plenty of juicy tangents that neither had time to cover. It is actually really neat to watch both documentaries as it gives one a more three-dimensional view of the proceedings. And, let us be honest, there is enough schadenfreude for a tv series. So everyone in this is either a ripoff artist or a person deserving to get ripped off? Not exactly. First of all, there are some very highly competent people involved. The folks that put out the promotional campaign video and social media blitz did an incredible job. Sure the actual festival itself looked nothing like the video but selling it out in a few days for a first time festival in a foreign country with Blink 182 as a headliner is amazing. That is some Ice selling to Eskimos right there. In addition, the actual application the Fyre festival was meant to promote was, at the very least a good idea. An app that allows private parties to easily search and book available entertainment for the company Christmas party or juniors bar mitzvah certainly is a useful tool. (Many people, including many of the principals of the Fyre company, do forget that the festival was simply supposed to be a marketing event for the app, not a business in and of itself.) So what is your takeaway? Music festivals are awful. Full stop. There is a reason the music festival scene dies every decade only to be reborn the next. They are awful so you have to wait till a new generation of idiots grows up to learn that hard lesson first hand. I mean even if they were able to pull this off you still just spent $1500 to sleep in a tent on gravel with no air conditioning to listen to Blink 182. Heck most music festivals, even the ones that manage to have bands show up, are as bad or worse than the Fyre festival. One of the interviewees has been roundly mocked in comparing the troubles Fyre had to Woodstock. He really isn't that much off. I mean food and water ran out in the first day at Woodstock and the army had to airlift supplies. Plus I don't recall the organizers at Woodstock offering fancy tents with air mattresses. Okay fine Woodstock had great music as well as Sha Na Na and it makes a great film and it defined a generation. The interviewee seemed young maybe he meant Woodstock '99. Both documentaries are great in their own way and both introduce topics, worlds, and trends that are interesting after the documentary has concluded. I would recommend both so you can take in all the Fyre Festival goodness. Now if I can only figure out why I keep calling it the "fry" festival instead of the "fire" festival we will be all good.

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• The Culmination of Emptiness

  plpregent2019-01-30

  Interestingly, "Fyre Fraud" was released on Hulu a few days before the Netflix documentary on the same subject, the latter of which is the first one I watched. I found it so compelling that I rushed to watch "Fyre Fraud", having read that both docs had plenty of interesting footage to offer, with this one including an actual interview with the con artist behind the scam, Billy McFarland. Clips of the interview are inserted here and there, but to be perfectly honest, do not provide much insight or reveal anything shocking, besides providing somewhat satisfactory cringey moments where McFarland seems to be sweating bullets and is seen stuttering in embarrassment after being asked certain questions that he obviously won't/can't answer due to ongoing lawsuits. The tone is not overly confrontational, but they did not shy away from asking tricky questions. While the Netflix piece had a well-organized, countdown type of structure that documented the lead-up to this disastrous event in great detail then depicted the event itself, both with plenty of on-site footage, "Fyre Fraud" uses a different approach, instead focusing on everything surrounding the event and the more philosophical questions that this literally empty shell raises: is this, to a greater extent, the result of a culture of emptiness? And while "Fyre Fraud" is certainly inferior as far as narrative structure is concerned, it digs deeper than the Netflix doc in its study of "influencers" and millennial culture. While they do not get that much screen time, there are two interviews with influencers who attended the event (no clue what their names are) who, after being candidly asked what an influencer is and how they would describe their "brand" (which is basically themselves and the "lifestyle" that they document, one heavily filtered picture at a time), both answered "positivity" after hesitating for a moment, struggling to find a meaning to something blatantly meaningless. There are several other people being interviewed, only a minority of which are also interviewed in the Netflix doc. As such, it was interesting to get different perspectives and, in many aspects, both documentaries are very interesting in their own right and could very well have been merged into one lengthy piece. Anyhow, as I was not familiar with the lead-up to the event and how it all unfolded, I'm happy I got to watch both docs in that order, as "Fyre Fraud" really focuses on the fraudulent aspect of it rather than all the cringe-worthy logistic and administrative failures that led to the disaster. My suggestion would be to watch both docs, starting with Netflix's. That way, with "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened", you'll get a really satisfactory depiction of the facts, including plenty of on-site footage prior to the event and during the event, and then, with "Fyre Fraud", you'll get a better picture of the aftermath, as well as an interesting, more in-depth sociological analysis of the psychological and behavioral traits of a delusional generation obsessed with flashing pictures of a luxurious lifestyle that a serial con man was able to successfully exploit. On its own, "Fyre Fraud" might feel a bit incomplete if you're looking for actual footage of this disaster. However, as a complement to "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened", it is highly satisfactory and completes the Netflix piece's deficiencies in terms of social commentary. That being said, if you have to choose between the two, I would suggest "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened".

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• Adds some additional context, but Netflix's is superior

  TwinkleLights2019-01-25

  I was very interested in the Fire festival fiasco when it broke in the spring of 2017. I watched the Netflix documentary first, and then Hulu's Verizon. Overall, I think the Netflix version has a more linear story progression and I like how it focused on the victim impact more so than the Hulu version. This Hulu doc also simply seems more amateur than the Netflix doc. I'm surprised no other reviews have mentioned it, but in this documentary when they want to relay informtaion from a court filing or statement, they have it read by one of those awful computer reading services which just sounds incredibly hokey and is frankly distracting. I've never seen that "artistic" choice in a film before. However, it you are very interested in all the details of this scandal, I would recommend both documentaries as they both contain distinct information. If you're trying to choose between them, then I would recommend the Netflix one over this.

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